$600 Intel build including monitor

[fallout3masseffect2]

Hi everyone,

I want to be able to install Snow Leopard as my primary OS then install Windows 7 through boot camp for gaming. Will this build allow me to do that? I have a budget of about 600 including getting the monitor, and I only need decent gaming performance. If there was a way to get thr price any lower for equal or better performance with reliable parts, then please let me know.

Preferably newegg.com , open to amazon.com and tigerdirect.com too though.

Processor: i3 2100 3.1GHz - $124.99
Motherboard: ASRock Intel Micro ATX LGA1155 - $54.99
Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 - Comes with free Shogun 2 game coupon - $109.99
RAM: G.SKILL DDR3 1333mhz 4gb (2x2gb) - $25.99
Hard Drive: Seagate 1TB 7200 RPM - $73.48 (combo with CD/DVD drive)
Case: Rosewill Challenger (Three fans, 1 top, 1 front, 1 rear) - $94.98 (combo with PSU)
PSU: Rosewill 600w - (See Case) - Researched this brands PSU's a bit and it seems like they have a decent reputation, 4 egg average.
CD/DVD Drive: LITE-ON 24x DVD Writer - (See Hard Drive)
Wireless Adapter: TP-LINK Wireless adapter 802.11b/g/n up to 300Mbps - $24.99
Monitor: Acer 20" 5ms LCD Monitor (1600x900) - $99.99
Speakers: Logitech 2.3 Watts 2.0 Sound - $12.99
Keyboard/Mouse: Already have - $0
Shipping: $4.84

Total cost: $627.23

So what do you guys think? Will this work for what I want it to do? Snow Leopard, Windows 7 in Boot Camp, Decent gaming performance.

Anyway to get it under $600 for equal or better performance?

Thanks.

 

[Proximon]

Why Win 7 in boot camp? It would be better to dual boot it.

As to the rest, you need to check the MB, GPU, and wireless card for "hackintosh" compatibility.

The Rosewill GREEN series are OK. The RP and RV series are NOT. This new HIVE series I have not investigated yet... it may be OK.

So the combo you want is
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.722708

 

[fallout3masseffect2]

I thought Boot Camp was just as good and easier? What is better about dual booting? And thanks for the link; I'm going with your combo instead.

 

[boiler1990]

I don't think you can use Boot Camp on a hackintosh because it is somewhat tied into the Mac hardware. Take a look at the OSX86 wiki if you haven't already; they have a large database of parts that have worked, and any workarounds you may need.

Also, I've heard you can just use a VM client and install OS X that way.

 

[zooted]

Why Win 7 in boot camp? It would be better to dual boot it.

As to the rest, you need to check the MB, GPU, and wireless card for "hackintosh" compatibility.

The Rosewill GREEN series are OK. The RP and RV series are NOT. This new HIVE series I have not investigated yet... it may be OK.

So the combo you want is
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.722708

The new hive series are Sirtec b14c bronze, they are the same as the ocz zs line, but modular. They look like a pretty good line.

 

[fallout3masseffect2]

@boiler1990, what is VM client? Is it something like iDeneb that uses an alternate installation wizard/kernel to install it?

Couldn't I also just dual boot Snow Leopard and Windows 7 using iBoot and Multibeast method?

 

[aznshinobi]

Virtual Machine is what VM stands for.
http://tonymacx86.com/
I believe tonymac is the best source for Hackintosh's, I've heard his name around a few times before

 

[Proximon]

It really is going to come down to priorities, what you are using the hardware to do, mostly. In a multi-boot type of environment you are minimizing the overhead and maximizing the functionality of each OS.
In a VM type of environment, which includes boot camp, you may have some limited functionality and some resources dedicated to the host OS.

That's my understanding and limited experience at least. If any of that is wrong someone please tell me.

 

[boiler1990]

It really is going to come down to priorities, what you are using the hardware to do, mostly. In a multi-boot type of environment you are minimizing the overhead and maximizing the functionality of each OS.
In a VM type of environment, which includes boot camp, you may have some limited functionality and some resources dedicated to the host OS.

That's my understanding and limited experience at least. If any of that is wrong someone please tell me.

Boot camp isn't entirely a VM; it's more of a dual boot scenario, since Mac OS isn't running, but it does load some Apple drivers and keep some functionality (like reboot into Mac OS).

Other than that, you're right about the host OS requiring resources. Generally, you can configure how much of your hardware the VM uses (specifically RAM and CPU cores), but it depends on the software.

 

[fallout3masseffect2]

tonymacx86.com is where I found the iBoot+Multibeast dual-boot method, and it seems like it works most of the time and is pretty easy.

I thought that Boot Camp is part of the Mac OS X installation disk, so I would be able to use it though?

And third, how good would running Mac OS X Snow Leopard be in a Virtual Machine? I would use it for browsing the internet, iTunes, Microsoft Office (Word and Excel). Would all of those work in a Virtual Machine, or should I just go dual-boot method instead?

Thanks for all the help.

 

[boiler1990]

In all honesty, why bother running Mac OS if you're not going to be running any proprietary Mac software? You can use all of those on the Windows side, and Office for Mac is pretty dull compared to the Windows version (I own a MacBook Air and Windows desktop, and use both). iTunes runs pretty well on my desktop too (only have a 64GB Air and over 50GB of movies :/).

Boot Camp, I'm *pretty* sure (not 100%) is tied a little to the hardware. Has to do with the EFI (honestly don't know what that is). Otherwise, a regular dual boot method is essentially the same thing as Boot Camp.

 

[fallout3masseffect2]

I wanted to run Mac OS X because for pretty much my entire life I've been using Macs, so I'm just used to them and know much more about them. I know the basics of PC's, and I don't NEED to run Mac, I would just like to.